The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus and an image forming method of supplying recovered toner into a developing device and reusing it, and they can be applied to an image forming apparatus and the like of, for example, a copy machine, printer, facsimile, and the like.
An image forming apparatus having a toner recycle device executes an image forming process such that the surface of a photosensitive drum is charged negatively, a latent image is formed by exposing the photosensitive drum with laser beams based on an image signal (a surface is charged with a potential), a visible image is formed by causing the latent image to absorb negatively charged toner, and the visible image is transferred onto a positively charged sheet and fixed thereon.
In the above image formation, toner, which was already used for image formation and collected for recycle (hereinafter, referred to as “recovered toner”), and new toner, which is not yet used for image formation (hereinafter, referred to as “new toner”), are used in mixture. That is, the recovered toner is recycled. The recovered toner is recycled by a toner recycle device.
A conventional toner recycle device is controlled to replenish recovered toner within a range in which a stable image is not damaged. That is, the toner recycle device is controlled to form an image stably by automatically changing the amount of the recovered toner to be replenished by, for example, reducing the amount of the recovered toner or stopping the supply of the recovered toner in accordance with a set value of the toner ratio density of an developing agent in a developing device.
In contrast, there is a case in which it is desired to make a large number of copies at any cost regardless of that new toner remains in a very small amount (new toner remains in a small amount) and that spare new toner is not available at hand. Even in such a case, however, the copies must be waited until the spare new toner is obtained.